Market share lost

Operating in an oil market which is increasingly chaotic and unstructured is not easy. The major oil companies – once all-powerful in the energy market – have over the years lost production and market share to state-owned conglomerates, most of them gathered under the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) umbrella.

In recent years OPEC itself has begun to fracture, and production level agreements have broken down.

Meanwhile non-OPEC members – the US and Canada – have been adding to a global oil glut – caused primarily by a slowing world economy – by pumping out millions of barrels of oil from shale depositsand by fracking.

Experts say that in order to survive, the oil majors have to invest in new technologies, including renewables. Once again, the companies are taking tentative steps along that path, but it might be too little, too late for them to survive.